The present invention relates to a method and system for accelerating receipt of data in a client-to-client network and, more particularly, to use of an acceleration server in proximity to user clients within the network to store previously received data.
Since the advent of computers, the ability of these machines to communicate with one another has increased greatly. It is now common for large numbers of computers to be organized in networks. Typically local area networks (LANs) are further organized into wide area networks (WANs), the most striking example of which is the Internet.
The availability of Internet connectivity to a huge number of computers has created an unforeseen demand for data transfer among computer users. Often the available bandwidth along a portion of a data path is great, but the speed of data transfer is reduced by narrow bandwidth along a different portion of the path. Typically, bandwidth is less restricted as the data path becomes shorter.
Client-to-client networks (also referred to as peer-to-peer networks) have become popular in recent years (see for example www.napster.com). These networks provide members with software that allows them to transfer and receive data directly from other members across the Internet. Typically the transferred data is organized in large files which require significant amounts of time for transfer. The volume of transferred data in client-to-client networks is such that it can, in some cases, reduce available bandwidth within a network. This can cause undesirable slowdowns for other users.
There is thus a need for, and it would be highly advantageous to have, a method and system for accelerating receipt of data in a client-to-client network devoid of the above limitation.